Goreme - A full day Green tour of Cappadocia

Our second day in Cappadocia was also our last. We timed our visit to Cappadocia around the flight schedules, as our next stop after Goreme was the Southern Coast of Turkey and there are only a couple of direct flights a week. 

The other option is an overnight bus to Antalya which takes about 10 hours, and then another 4 hours to Kas. We again chose the quickest option of a one hour flight, so we only had two nights in Goreme.

Our flight was leaving in the evening, so we had the full day to explore Cappadocia. Without a car, the easiest way to explore Cappadocia is on a tour, and there are lots of options and companies to choose from. 

We chose a company recommended by our hotel who offered full day tours with a small group. There are several tour options on offer, and we chose the Green Tour which had the best mix of the places we were interested in seeing.

I'm not the biggest fan of tour groups, they always seem to be full of annoying people who stand in big groups blocking sights for other people, and I hate not being able to move at our own pace, but with such a short time we didn't have much choice. 

We were picked up from our hotel at 9.30 a.m. and transferred to a minivan with about 10 other people and set off for the Selime Monastery.

Selime Monastery is the biggest rock cut Monastery in Cappadocia with a Cathedral size Church cut into the rock.

The Monastery was carved by Monks in the 13th century, and includes a kitchen, living quarters and a stable for animals. The path leading up and back is extremely narrow with steep rock on both sides, most of the way I literally had to put one foot directly in front of the other, so definitely not a place for anyone with walking difficulties.

Once we got to the top we were free to wander around by ourselves for 20 minutes or so after being given a brief history of the Monastery.

The views across the valley were amazing, we didn't realise how high we had climbed until we got to the top, and with several big drop offs we were careful not to get too close to the edge.

Some of the rooms cut into the rock were huge, big proper rooms rather than small cave rooms. It's amazing to stand in these by spaces carved hundreds of years ago.

I loved peeking out the windows at the sky

The chapel itself had intricate carvings, and apparently used to have frescos on the walls, but there's no trace of these now.

Careful to stay away from the edge!

After visiting the Monastery we headed down the road to Ihlara Valley, a 16 km long gorge cut into Volcanic rock, where we would do a 4 km hike alongside the river before stopping for lunch.

We descended the stairs down into the Valley, and stopped at the Ağaçaltı church, where we were able to see several frescos depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Three Wise Men.

There were several tours groups in front and behind us, so each group got to spend only about 3-4 minutes inside the church. The church itself dates back to the 4th century, and the frescos date back to the 10th century.

After leaving the Church, we were left to walk along the Valley on our own, meeting together for lunch at the end at a riverside restaurant.

Wandering along the Valley, we saw several other Churches cut high into the rocks. We didn't stop to visit any of these as they weren't part of the tour which was a shame, and the thing I hate about tours. We don't get to stop longer in the places we want to see, or veer off on our own to explore other places.

We chose our lunch options off a set menu, which was actually pretty good. I had beef stew, while Bradley had chicken. Lunch also included soup, bread and salad which was good after the hike in the hot sun.

After lunch, the next stop on the tour was the Derinkuyu Underground City, about a half hour drive from Ihlara Valley.

The underground city is over 8 stories deep, and was used by Christians to hide from enemy attacks on Derinkuyu during the 5th to 10th century.

The underground city could accommodate 20,000 people and has hundreds of rooms over 8 levels including areas for sleeping, eating, a wine cellar, stables and a church.

The tunnels are obviously not made for anyone with claustrophobia, they are very narrow and at times you have to crouch and shuffle very low to avoid hitting your head. While the caves are dim, there is lighting so you're not in the darkness too much, but you are still in a cave several stories below ground which is unnerving.

We visited in the afternoon while a lot of tours visit in the morning, so it wasn't too crowded. I can't imagine how awful it would be to be in such small places with several tour groups.

Being so far below ground and with lots of steps and dusty air, I was concerned about my asthma, and going from the 5th floor down to the 8th floor, there is a very narrow stairway and you have to wait for one group to come up before anyone else can go down. I got halfway down the stairs before having to go back up, because I knew my asthma wouldn't handle walking all the narrow steps back up.

So we waited upstairs while the rest of our group went further down, and after 10 minutes a few people came back up saying the claustrophobia got too much for them, so we didn't feel too bad missing out!

We were very glad when it was time to go back upstairs and into the sunshine, which seemed extremely bright after the dimness of the caves. Being down there for half an hour was enough for me, I can't imagine spending any length of time like the people that made it.

I stopped to pat a lovely looking dog outside, who promptly got up when I went to leave and followed me down the street. He was so friendly I wanted to take him home, but I managed to shoo him away for some pats from other people.

The last stop on the tour was the Pigeon Valley viewpoint, high up on the mountains surround Goreme, similar to where we were the previous day.

Before getting there we stopped at a Onyx Centre to watch them making jewellery and ornaments out of Onyx, which then ended with everyone stopping to look around the store. This took about half an hour at least, and was frustrating as we waited for people to shop for jewellery. 

We were already running behind schedule, and we had to be back at our hotel to get the Shuttle to the airport. This once again reinforced why we hate tour groups. We stayed at the shop for way too long, and even after mentioning we had a flight to catch, the tour guide wasn't interested in hurrying anyone along.

In comparison, the stop at Pigeon Valley was only about 10 minutes. The view was beautiful, but we had seen it the day before, and by this point we were just fed up with the whole tour group and ready to get back.

Looking over the Goreme landscape makes you really appreciate how different it is to anywhere else in the world.

We were dropped back into town and had time to grab some Gozleme for dinner before going back to the hotel and picking up our things for the airport transfer to Kayseri.

It was already 7.00 p.m. and we still had about 8 hours of travel time ahead of us before we'd be in Kas. We had a lot of Coke to wake us up before getting on the plane, but even so, after such a long day it was hard to stay awake and we were hoping that Kas was worth the travel time!